Race Report: Shea Center Criterium - Masters 35+ 1/2/3/4 and P1/2/3
Race: Shea Center Criterium - Masters 35+ 1/2/3/4 and P1/2/3
Date: August 9, 2026
AVRT racers: Paul Levy
Top Result:
Masters 35+ 1/2/3/4: 7th/30
P1/2/3: 12th/34
Course: 0.95 mile loop with six corners around the Shea Center in Livermore. It is almost the same as all the early bird courses but with an additional U-turn added by the parking lot, requiring a hard acceleration each lap
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/19674559306
Nutrition: Just a some sips of salty carb water during each race, had some fruit snacks and a small soda before and after each race and a small pasta lunch after the first race
Recap (written by Paul Levy):
I started my day with the Masters 35+ 1/2/3/4 field which launched at 10:45 for 45 minutes of racing. Although there were a couple teams with two or three riders present, Lamorinda seemed to be the only team working cohesively. So cohesively in fact that I thought there were four or five of them, but looking back at the results there were only three. Kudos to them. One Lamorinda rider got away from the group relatively early on and established a sizable gap. I tried to get a gap myself a few times to bridge but wasn’t able to make anything stick. Lamorinda was doing an annoyingly good job of keeping a guy near the front to subtly dissuade an organized chase effort and also to follow anyone that tried to bridge. On top of that, not only was this a wide field with a handful of Cat 3s and even a few Cat 4s, but I think a lot of the 3s and 4s had already raced earlier this morning. This made for not as much firepower to chase as it seemed like a field of this size would have and I felt like I spent a lot of time on the front hoping more of the group would eventually pull through. We did eventually catch the Lamorinda rider near the end of the race and the field got more active once we started seeing the lap countdown cards. I wasn’t aggressive enough in keeping my position for the last few laps and came in 7th.
There was a nice time gap between the two races, about 2 hours, so I had a light lunch of pasta salad I brought with me, kept drinking water, repinned my second number, and got a big ice sock ready for the second race. I was excited to almost have a teammate in the P123 race as I saw George Wehner roll up. Unfortunately as he was warming up George realized his cleat was worn out. This was causing his foot to pop out of his pedal very easily, and he didn’t feel safe doing the race.
It was a lot hotter by the time the P123 race was starting. I stuffed a big ice sock down my back and sprayed some water on myself before the start. I didn’t feel very good for the first few laps, sore legs and the beginnings of a headache. Maybe coulda shoulda re-warmed up a bit more before this second race. Either way, I felt better after the first few laps. For the first half or so I felt good and stayed near the front and tried to follow a few moves. This race had solid representation from CycleSport, Mikes Bikes, and Terun, so there was a lot more action than in the earlier masters race. About halfway through the race the heat and all the racing up to that point really started adding up and I drifted towards the back and shifted into let’s-just-finish-the-race mode, which was not as easy as it sounds with nearly half the field DNPing.
As we entered the last ten laps, there was a break of two up the road which gave relief in a way because we slowed down noticeably, but then there were some really hard surges a few times as people attempted to bridge. I was nowhere near being in the mix for the field sprint for 3rd, but I felt accomplished just going into the last few turns with the main bunch.
I knew it was hot while we were racing, but I don’t think I appreciated just how hot until I saw how caked in salt I was at the end. I’m sure it won’t be an issue at the next hot race since Garmin says I’m 100% heat adapted after this one.